Twenty years ago, a novelist went to see his publisher to discuss his proposal to write a dystopian novel set in Britain in 2020 when newspaper columnists have taken power and are running the country. These opinion-makers, sometimes called the Commentariat, had for years been expressing outrage at the failings of the government and everyone…
The Prophet Enoch is a well-known figure in the Old Testament. Consequently his name has been popular as a personal name at certain periods, with parents of Jewish and Christian backgrounds naming their sons after him. The name never used to have any significance, except in reference to the biblical figure, other family members or…
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson is the latest Western leader to wildly jump on the bandwagon claiming that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was poisoned, and by implication insinuating the Kremlin had a sinister hand in it. “The poisoning of Alexei Navalny shocked the world,” asserted Johnson on Twitter, who went on to call for…
It’s 17 years since the neocons led Britain and US into the calamitous invasion of Iraq. Such was the scale of the disaster that you would have thought it would have driven them out of public life. Far from it. The British neoconservatives have not merely survived. They’ve flourished. They’re back in charge. It’s the opponents of the war…
A lucrative post-Brexit UK-China trade deal has been flushed away. And Britain could have up to 3 million Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong on their way. But no one wants to hold the prime minister to account. Perhaps in an ordinary week, the Chinese takeaway just ordered by Boris Johnson would have attracted more attention…
The US and UK are the nation states that have performed worst in the world in coping with the coronavirus pandemic. Americans and Britons make up more than a third of the 300,000 people worldwide who have died from Covid-19. They have paid the ultimate price for their governments’ slow and incompetent response to the…
